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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Late Night Musings from the Flu Stricken - Or my un-chicken noodle recipe

I'm on day 4 of having the flu. I'm achey, have a fever, am coughing and sneezing and would frankly prefer spending my holidays doing other things than being sick. But, alas, both my beau and I were struck with a very virulent form of influenza, which we suspect originated from a certain office Christmas party...

In one of my feverish bouts, I found myself craving chicken noodle soup. But, I'm a vegetarian, I wouldn't actually want to eat that. So after a few inconclusive searches online, I decided to whip up my own.

Here's my delicious take on that. If I could come up with a brand new recipe, at least my holidays won't have gone to complete waste...Although I have done some important catching up on my reading too. ;)

Vegan Chicken Noodle Soup

I eyeballed this recipe and realized I was missing a few of the staples but I'm sure you can make it work for yourself. For example, garlic and bay leaves are conspicuously absent. I didn't have garlic on hand and forgot the bay leaves.

In a large dutch oven, heat up the olive oil on medium and stir in the onions. Cook until translucent. Add in the carrots and celery and stir in to cover with oil and onions. While that sweats on medium heat, in a large bowl, place the TVP bits, 2 tablespoons of each kinds of broths and the no-salt seasoning. Pour the boiling water (all of it) on the TVP and stir to dissolve the broth. Set aside.

Once the carrots and celery have softened, add in the ginger and stir. Then gently pour in the broth water with the TVP bits into the dutch oven. Mix up and bring up to a boil, add in the broken pasta, and once the soup boils again, set to simmer and cover for about 30 minutes. You may want to add water if you find that it's looking more like a stew than a soup.

At this point, you'll want to taste the broth. If it's missing seasonings, you can add in some salt, pepper or other spices.